[PATCH 02/14] xfs: document the general theory underlying online fsck design

Darrick J. Wong
2022-12-30T22:29:53Z

Start the second chapter of the online fsck design documentation.
This covers the general theory underlying how online fsck works.

Signed-off-by: Darrick J. Wong <djwong@kernel.org>
---
.../filesystems/xfs-online-fsck-design.rst | 366 ++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 366 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/xfs-online-fsck-design.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/xfs-online-fsck-design.rst
index 25717ebb5f80..a03a7b9f0250 100644
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/xfs-online-fsck-design.rst
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/xfs-online-fsck-design.rst
@@ -197,3 +197,369 @@ metadata to enable targeted checking and repair operations while the system
is running.
This capability will be coupled to automatic system management so that
autonomous self-healing of XFS maximizes service availability.
+
+2. Theory of Operation
+======================
+
+Because it is necessary for online fsck to lock and scan live metadata objects,
+online fsck consists of three separate code components.
+The first is the userspace driver program ``xfs_scrub``, which is responsible
+for identifying individual metadata items, scheduling work items for them,
+reacting to the outcomes appropriately, and reporting results to the system
+administrator.
+The second and third are in the kernel, which implements functions to check
+and repair each type of online fsck work item.
+
++------------------------------------------------------------------+
+| **Note**: |
++------------------------------------------------------------------+
+| For brevity, this document shortens the phrase "online fsck work |
+| item" to "scrub item". |
++------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+Scrub item types are delineated in a manner consistent with the Unix design
+philosophy, which is to say that each item should handle one aspect of a
+metadata structure, and handle it well.
+
+Scope
+-----
+
+In principle, online fsck should be able to check and to repair everything that
+the offline fsck program can handle.
+However, the adjective *online* brings with it the limitation that online fsck
+cannot deal with anything that prevents the filesystem from going on line, i.e.
+mounting.
+This limitation means that maintenance of the offline fsck tool will continue.
+A second limitation of online fsck is that it must follow the same resource
+sharing and lock acquisition rules as the regular filesystem.
+This means that scrub cannot take *any* shortcuts to save time, because doing
+so could lead to concurrency problems.
+In other words, online fsck will never be able to fix 100% of the
+inconsistencies that offline fsck can repair, and a complete run of online fsck
+may take longer.
+However, both of these limitations are acceptable tradeoffs to satisfy the
+different motivations of online fsck, which are to **minimize system downtime**
+and to **increase predictability of operation**.
+
+.. _scrubphases:
+
+Phases of Work
+--------------
+
+The userspace driver program ``xfs_scrub`` splits the work of checking and
+repairing an entire filesystem into seven phases.
+Each phase concentrates on checking specific types of scrub items and depends
+on the success of all previous phases.
+The seven phases are as follows:
+
+1. Collect geometry information about the mounted filesystem and computer,
+ discover the online fsck capabilities of the kernel, and open the
+ underlying storage devices.
+
+2. Check allocation group metadata, all realtime volume metadata, and all quota
+ files.
+ Each metadata structure is scheduled as a separate scrub item.
+ If corruption is found in the inode header or inode btree and ``xfs_scrub``
+ is permitted to perform repairs, then those scrub items are repaired to
+ prepare for phase 3.
+ Repairs are implemented by resubmitting the scrub item to the kernel with
+ the repair flag enabled; this is discussed in the next section.
+ Optimizations and all other repairs are deferred to phase 4.
+
+3. Check all metadata of every file in the filesystem.
+ Each metadata structure is also scheduled as a separate scrub item.
+ If repairs are needed, ``xfs_scrub`` is permitted to perform repairs,
+ and there were no problems detected during phase 2, then those scrub items
+ are repaired.
+ Optimizations and unsuccessful repairs are deferred to phase 4.
+
+4. All remaining repairs and scheduled optimizations are performed during this
+ phase, if the caller permits them.
+ Before starting repairs, the summary counters are checked and any necessary
+ repairs are performed so that subsequent repairs will not fail the resource
+ reservation step due to wildly incorrect summary counters.
+ Unsuccesful repairs are requeued as long as forward progress on repairs is
+ made somewhere in the filesystem.
+ Free space in the filesystem is trimmed at the end of phase 4 if the
+ filesystem is clean.
+
+5. By the start of this phase, all primary and secondary filesystem metadata
+ must be correct.
+ Summary counters such as the free space counts and quota resource counts
+ are checked and corrected.
+ Directory entry names and extended attribute names are checked for
+ suspicious entries such as control characters or confusing Unicode sequences
+ appearing in names.
+
+6. If the caller asks for a media scan, read all allocated and written data
+ file extents in the filesystem.
+ The ability to use hardware-assisted data file integrity checking is new
+ to online fsck; neither of the previous tools have this capability.
+ If media errors occur, they will be mapped to the owning files and reported.
+
+7. Re-check the summary counters and presents the caller with a summary of
+ space usage and file counts.
+
+Steps for Each Scrub Item
+-------------------------
+
+The kernel scrub code uses a three-step strategy for checking and repairing
+the one aspect of a metadata object represented by a scrub item:
+
+1. The scrub item of interest is checked for corruptions; opportunities for
+ optimization; and for values that are directly controlled by the system
+ administrator but look suspicious.
+ If the item is not corrupt or does not need optimization, resource are
+ released and the positive scan results are returned to userspace.
+ If the item is corrupt or could be optimized but the caller does not permit
+ this, resources are released and the negative scan results are returned to
+ userspace.
+ Otherwise, the kernel moves on to the second step.
+
+2. The repair function is called to rebuild the data structure.
+ Repair functions generally choose rebuild a structure from other metadata
+ rather than try to salvage the existing structure.
+ If the repair fails, the scan results from the first step are returned to
+ userspace.
+ Otherwise, the kernel moves on to the third step.
+
+3. In the third step, the kernel runs the same checks over the new metadata
+ item to assess the efficacy of the repairs.
+ The results of the reassessment are returned to userspace.
+
+Classification of Metadata
+--------------------------
+
+Each type of metadata object (and therefore each type of scrub item) is
+classified as follows:
+
+Primary Metadata
+````````````````
+
+Metadata structures in this category should be most familiar to filesystem
+users either because they are directly created by the user or they index
+objects created by the user
+Most filesystem objects fall into this class.
+Resource and lock acquisition for scrub code follows the same order as regular
+filesystem accesses.
+
+Primary metadata objects are the simplest for scrub to process.
+The principal filesystem object (either an allocation group or an inode) that
+owns the item being scrubbed is locked to guard against concurrent updates.
+The check function examines every record associated with the type for obvious
+errors and cross-references healthy records against other metadata to look for
+inconsistencies.
+Repairs for this class of scrub item are simple, since the repair function
+starts by holding all the resources acquired in the previous step.
+The repair function scans available metadata as needed to record all the
+observations needed to complete the structure.
+Next, it stages the observations in a new ondisk structure and commits it
+atomically to complete the repair.
+Finally, the storage from the old data structure are carefully reaped.
+
+Because ``xfs_scrub`` locks a primary object for the duration of the repair,
+this is effectively an offline repair operation performed on a subset of the
+filesystem.
+This minimizes the complexity of the repair code because it is not necessary to
+handle concurrent updates from other threads, nor is it necessary to access
+any other part of the filesystem.
+As a result, indexed structures can be rebuilt very quickly, and programs
+trying to access the damaged structure will be blocked until repairs complete.
+The only infrastructure needed by the repair code are the staging area for
+observations and a means to write new structures to disk.
+Despite these limitations, the advantage that online repair holds is clear:
+targeted work on individual shards of the filesystem avoids total loss of
+service.
+
+This mechanism is described in section 2.1 ("Off-Line Algorithm") of
+V. Srinivasan and M. J. Carey, `"Performance of On-Line Index Construction
+Algorithms" <https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/645336.649870>`_,
+*Extending Database Technology*, pp. 293-309, 1992.
+
+Most primary metadata repair functions stage their intermediate results in an
+in-memory array prior to formatting the new ondisk structure, which is very
+similar to the list-based algorithm discussed in section 2.3 ("List-Based
+Algorithms") of Srinivasan.
+However, any data structure builder that maintains a resource lock for the
+duration of the repair is *always* an offline algorithm.
+
+Secondary Metadata
+``````````````````
+
+Metadata structures in this category reflect records found in primary metadata,
+but are only needed for online fsck or for reorganization of the filesystem.
+Resource and lock acquisition for scrub code do not follow the same order as
+regular filesystem accesses, and may involve full filesystem scans.
+
+Secondary metadata objects are difficult for scrub to process, because scrub
+attaches to the secondary object but needs to check primary metadata, which
+runs counter to the usual order of resource acquisition.
+Check functions can be limited in scope to reduce runtime.
+Repairs, however, require a full scan of primary metadata, which can take a
+long time to complete.
+Under these conditions, ``xfs_scrub`` cannot lock resources for the entire
+duration of the repair.
+
+Instead, repair functions set up an in-memory staging structure to store
+observations.
+Depending on the requirements of the specific repair function, the staging
+index can have the same format as the ondisk structure, or it can have a design
+specific to that repair function.
+The next step is to release all locks and start the filesystem scan.
+When the repair scanner needs to record an observation, the staging data are
+locked long enough to apply the update.
+Simultaneously, the repair function hooks relevant parts of the filesystem to
+apply updates to the staging data if the the update pertains to an object that
+has already been scanned by the index builder.
+Once the scan is done, the owning object is re-locked, the live data is used to
+write a new ondisk structure, and the repairs are committed atomically.
+The hooks are disabled and the staging staging area is freed.
+Finally, the storage from the old data structure are carefully reaped.
+
+Introducing concurrency helps online repair avoid various locking problems, but
+comes at a high cost to code complexity.
+Live filesystem code has to be hooked so that the repair function can observe
+updates in progress.
+The staging area has to become a fully functional parallel structure so that
+updates can be merged from the hooks.
+Finally, the hook, the filesystem scan, and the inode locking model must be
+sufficiently well integrated that a hook event can decide if a given update
+should be applied to the staging structure.
+
+In theory, the scrub implementation could apply these same techniques for
+primary metadata, but doing so would make it massively more complex and less
+performant.
+Programs attempting to access the damaged structures are not blocked from
+operation, which may cause application failure or an unplanned filesystem
+shutdown.
+
+Inspiration for the secondary metadata repair strategy was drawn from section
+2.4 of Srinivasan above, and sections 2 ("NSF: Inded Build Without Side-File")
+and 3.1.1 ("Duplicate Key Insert Problem") in C. Mohan, `"Algorithms for
+Creating Indexes for Very Large Tables Without Quiescing Updates"
+<https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/130283.130337>`_, 1992.
+
+The sidecar index mentioned above bears some resemblance to the side file
+method mentioned in Srinivasan and Mohan.
+Their method consists of an index builder that extracts relevant record data to
+build the new structure as quickly as possible; and an auxiliary structure that
+captures all updates that would be committed to the index by other threads were
+the new index already online.
+After the index building scan finishes, the updates recorded in the side file
+are applied to the new index.
+To avoid conflicts between the index builder and other writer threads, the
+builder maintains a publicly visible cursor that tracks the progress of the
+scan through the record space.
+To avoid duplication of work between the side file and the index builder, side
+file updates are elided when the record ID for the update is greater than the
+cursor position within the record ID space.
+
+To minimize changes to the rest of the codebase, XFS online repair keeps the
+replacement index hidden until it's completely ready to go.
+In other words, there is no attempt to expose the keyspace of the new index
+while repair is running.
+The complexity of such an approach would be very high and perhaps more
+appropriate to building *new* indices.
+
+**Question**: Can the full scan and live update code used to facilitate a
+repair also be used to implement a comprehensive check?
+
+*Answer*: Probably, though this has not been yet been studied.
+
+Summary Information
+```````````````````
+
+Metadata structures in this last category summarize the contents of primary
+metadata records.
+These are often used to speed up resource usage queries, and are many times
+smaller than the primary metadata which they represent.
+Check and repair both require full filesystem scans, but resource and lock
+acquisition follow the same paths as regular filesystem accesses.
+
+The superblock summary counters have special requirements due to the underlying
+implementation of the incore counters, and will be treated separately.
+Check and repair of the other types of summary counters (quota resource counts
+and file link counts) employ the same filesystem scanning and hooking
+techniques as outlined above, but because the underlying data are sets of
+integer counters, the staging data need not be a fully functional mirror of the
+ondisk structure.
+
+Inspiration for quota and file link count repair strategies were drawn from
+sections 2.12 ("Online Index Operations") through 2.14 ("Incremental View
+Maintenace") of G. Graefe, `"Concurrent Queries and Updates in Summary Views
+and Their Indexes"
+<http://www.odbms.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Increment-locks.pdf>`_, 2011.
+
+Since quotas are non-negative integer counts of resource usage, online
+quotacheck can use the incremental view deltas described in section 2.14 to
+track pending changes to the block and inode usage counts in each transaction,
+and commit those changes to a dquot side file when the transaction commits.
+Delta tracking is necessary for dquots because the index builder scans inodes,
+whereas the data structure being rebuilt is an index of dquots.
+Link count checking combines the view deltas and commit step into one because
+it sets attributes of the objects being scanned instead of writing them to a
+separate data structure.
+Each online fsck function will be discussed as case studies later in this
+document.
+
+Risk Management
+---------------
+
+During the development of online fsck, several risk factors were identified
+that may make the feature unsuitable for certain distributors and users.
+Steps can be taken to mitigate or eliminate those risks, though at a cost to
+functionality.
+
+- **Decreased performance**: Adding metadata indices to the filesystem
+ increases the time cost of persisting changes to disk, and the reverse space
+ mapping and directory parent pointers are no exception.
+ System administrators who require the maximum performance can disable the
+ reverse mapping features at format time, though this choice dramatically
+ reduces the ability of online fsck to find inconsistencies and repair them.
+
+- **Incorrect repairs**: As with all software, there might be defects in the
+ software that result in incorrect repairs being written to the filesystem.
+ Systematic fuzz testing (detailed in the next section) is employed by the
+ authors to find bugs early, but it might not catch everything.
+ The kernel build system provides Kconfig options (``CONFIG_XFS_ONLINE_SCRUB``
+ and ``CONFIG_XFS_ONLINE_REPAIR``) to enable distributors to choose not to
+ accept this risk.
+ The xfsprogs build system has a configure option (``--enable-scrub=no``) that
+ disables building of the ``xfs_scrub`` binary, though this is not a risk
+ mitigation if the kernel functionality remains enabled.
+
+- **Inability to repair**: Sometimes, a filesystem is too badly damaged to be
+ repairable.
+ If the keyspaces of several metadata indices overlap in some manner but a
+ coherent narrative cannot be formed from records collected, then the repair
+ fails.
+ To reduce the chance that a repair will fail with a dirty transaction and
+ render the filesystem unusable, the online repair functions have been
+ designed to stage and validate all new records before committing the new
+ structure.
+
+- **Misbehavior**: Online fsck requires many privileges -- raw IO to block
+ devices, opening files by handle, ignoring Unix discretionary access control,
+ and the ability to perform administrative changes.
+ Running this automatically in the background scares people, so the systemd
+ background service is configured to run with only the privileges required.
+ Obviously, this cannot address certain problems like the kernel crashing or
+ deadlocking, but it should be sufficient to prevent the scrub process from
+ escaping and reconfiguring the system.
+ The cron job does not have this protection.
+
+- **Fuzz Kiddiez**: There are many people now who seem to think that running
+ automated fuzz testing of ondisk artifacts to find mischevious behavior and
+ spraying exploit code onto the public mailing list for instant zero-day
+ disclosure is somehow of some social benefit.
+ In the view of this author, the benefit is realized only when the fuzz
+ operators help to **fix** the flaws, but this opinion apparently is not
+ widely shared among security "researchers".
+ The XFS maintainers' continuing ability to manage these events presents an
+ ongoing risk to the stability of the development process.
+ Automated testing should front-load some of the risk while the feature is
+ considered EXPERIMENTAL.
+
+Many of these risks are inherent to software programming.
+Despite this, it is hoped that this new functionality will prove useful in
+reducing unexpected downtime.